In the Philippines, the Senate has received a proposed 7.2-trillion-peso national budget for 2027 and pledged to examine it with a transparency it has not always honored in the past. Senate President Gatchalian and Finance Committee chair Ejercito have named the specific instruments of past manipulation—secret meetings, last-minute insertions, leadership funds—and committed to dismantling them. The moment is a quiet test of whether institutional accountability can be practiced, not merely promised, even as the chamber shoulders the concurrent weight of an impeachment trial.